The Republic Day

26th January. The 'nation' celebrates it's 55th Republic Day. And how! The government organises a parade of its developmental projects, advancements in science and technology, and the might of it's military. Awards are handed out. Song, dance and spectacle characterizes the day, patriotic films are screened, patriotic songs pour forth from any music station tuned into.

Was this how it was meant to be celebrated? The day which should have honored the spirit of freedom, courage, strength, and endurance of a fledgling state has become a parody of the sentiments it set out to eulogize. The celebration is of military prowess, where is the spectacle of poverty in it? India is still one of the poorest countries in the world, but do we pledge for a helping hand? No. The Parade reflects the development in various walks of life, where is the continuing huger, thirst, illetracy, uneducatedness in it? Is there any promise of equality of opportunities? No. Our laders pay their respects to the Amar Jawan Jyot, where is the concern for handicapped armed forces personnel or for the widows and orphans of the martyrs? A public display is made of the private overwhelming grief of their widows and parents, but they still run from pillar to post even to receive their dues.

Children are not even aware of the significance of the day. For them it is a school holiday, meant to be enjoyed with their parents at some park or eatery or some mall. For others like maids or labourers, it is just another day when their better offs enjoy while they work to get that essential evening meal in their homes. The celebration is now just limited to the yearly parade and the speeches of the leaders and the songs and movies screened on tv or radio. Nobody would even be aware of the Republic day or its significance without the observation of these rituals.

Should not all this change? Wouldn't it be better to put in the money used in the arrangements to some better use like making available basic amenities to the needy? Every paisa helps if properly channeled.

Mrs.'Clarissa' Dalloway

The protagonist, Clarissa Dalloway is a 'charming, vivacious' and a very sensitive woman, 'very upright' in her bearing, having 'a touch of the bird about her'. She wanted to be stately and commanding like Lady Bruton, or like Lady Bexborough, 'slow and stately...very dignified, very sincere. Instead of which she had a narrow pea-stick figure; a ridiculous little face, beaked like a bird's'. Inspite of her 'light' appearance, Clarissa has a commanding presence, 'Not that she was striking; not beautiful at all; there was nothing picturesque about her; she never said anything specially clever; there she was, however; there she was'. In her own words, she 'loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense'. She loves to give parties, dance, and being looked upon as a benevolent mistress, '...thank you ,thank you, she went on saying in gratitude to her servants generally for helping her to be like this, to be what she wanted, gentle, generous-hearted'. Even Lady Bruton who usually meets her with indifference or hostility has to admit that 'Clarissa had wonderful energy' in context of her parties; She loves her husband Richard Dalloway and is thankful to him for giving her space in their marriage 'For in a marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in day out in the same house'. Her affection for her daughter Elizabeth becomes apparent in her resentment over Miss Kilman's influence over her daughter. Clarissa loves life, though finds it unbearable at the same time, 'very, very dangerous to live even one day'. This negativity in her thoughts appear to be a result of her recent illness, as well as perhaps the just ended War. She is an atheist 'not for a moment did she believe in God' and does good for it's own sake. Though the immediate cause of this was her sister's death, she has always been 'one of the most thorough-going sceptics'.

Clarissa's friend Peter Walsh admires her for 'her courage; her social instinct...her power of carrying things through...her spirit, her adventurousness', her charm and her honesty. According to him she has a 'genius' of getting people together at her parties, and she needed people around her to bring out her 'exquisite' sense of comedy. He finds her a better judge of character, Clarissa herself says 'her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct'; shrewd and having a clear knowledge of what she wants. At the same time however, he finds her 'hard...a trifle sentimental', 'insincere', 'worldly', 'cold as an icicle', 'That was the devilish part of her- this coldness, this woodenness, something very profound in her...an impenetrability'. He calls her a 'perfect hostess', implying all the superficiality involved in such a role, which Clarissa resents. This touch of artificiality is revealed in Clarissa's thoughts while she is out shopping for flowers in the morning, 'people should look pleased as she came in...Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas...half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that'. Sally calls her a snob for she has invited Clarissa to come over to her place many times, but the latter never does. However, Sally is thankful for the friendship they shared, for it 'kept her sane...so unhappy had she been at home'.

Clarissa has a very active imagination, everything that is related to her or is remembered by her is very clearly felt and seen by her in her mind's eye, be they her reminiscences about Bourton when she was young, her conversations with her friends in those early days, her reactions to the incidents that happend then or are taking place now.
'...with a lttle squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air', again, 'She stiffened a little; so she would stand at the top of her stairs'. The most graphic being, 'He had killed himself- but how? Always her body went through it, when she was told, first, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; though him, blundering, bruising went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud in his brain and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it.'
She appears to understand the reason why Septimus comitted suicide. Everyone strives to find a meaning in life, but as one grows older frittering one's life in parties and chattering, it becomes impossible to find any answer. Maybe the young man has killed himself because there is no meaning in life, and has instead found an embrace in death itself. 'Death was an attempt to communicate, people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which , mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death'. She almost feels guilty for being alive and seems almost to resent this life because it ties one down to lead it to the end.

Clarissa understands her own nature, that she has been selfish and ambitious. But this is how she is and her friends are thakful for her selfless friendship.

Virginia Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway as a Modernist Novel

Modernism implies a break from the tradition.It refers to some sort of discontinuity, treating characters as 'thinking' individuals, emphasizing the unconscious rather than the outer, visible self; plot is more of a collection of incidents and their effect on the individual than the advance towards crisis and its resolution; imagination and internal thought processes form the substance of the literary work characterised as 'modern'. Mrs.Dalloway is a modern novel which embodies the vision that Virginia Woolf sets out in her essay, 'Modern Novels', and conforms to that ideal in almost every respect, that

...if one were free and could set down what one chose, there would be no plot, little probability, and a vague general confusion in which the clear-cut features of the tragic, the comic, the passionate, and the lyrical were dissolved beyond the possibility of separate recognition? The mind, exposed to the ordinary course of life, receives upon its surface a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel...suggesting that the proper stuff for fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.

Clarissa Dalloway is throwing a party. Her thoughts, remembrances, and impressions, along with the thoughts of other characters, form the 'action' of the novel. Confined to a single day in London, this is a modern novel for it has no action in the traditional sense- of building up a crisis and its resolution, of intermingling of various plots and sub-plots, just a presentation of two-three narrative threads progressing though the passage of a single day; it has an open form, the ending being inconclusive; no linearity of the story, characters feeling, experiencing and thinking, rather than acting. The sense of action is provided by the passage of time, heralded by clocks chiming and BigBen striking, towards the actual party, as well as the build-up to and the suicide committed by Septimus. The action is internalised in the thoughts and impressions received by the characters. Unlike the traditional works, this novel has also no story to tell. It is a coherent collection of 'myriad impressions', all brought together by Woolf to have her say about what she thinks about all these things through the medium of her characters, though they appear alive and thinking in their own rights. There is also no conclusive ending to the novel. The ending is such that it could be taken as a beginning to another such collection of thoughts. 'What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?
It is Clarissa, he said.
For there she was.'

Each character is revealed not by actual description by the author as used to be the case before, but by giving voice to thoughts of that character as well as what others think of him or her. Clarissa becomes a physical presence in her own words, 'she had a narrow pea-stick figure; a ridiculous little face, beaked like a bird's'. Her nature is revealed in her own thoughts, 'loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense', 'not for a moment did she believe in God', and again 'people should look pleased as she came in...Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas...half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that'. Peter reveals another aspect of her character, 'her courage; her social instinct...her power of carrying things through...her spirit, her adventurousness', 'her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct'. Sally calls her a snob.
Similarly, Peter is 'Exactly the same, thought Clarissa; the same queer look; the same check suit; a little out of the straight his face is, a little thinner, dryer, perhaps, but he looks awfully well, and just the same', 'always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited'. Sally finds him, 'an oddity, a sort of sprite, not at all an ordinary man'.'He was rather shrivelled-looking, but kinder' but has retained 'his old trick, opening a pocket-knife, thought Sally, always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited'.
Septimus is 'pale-faced, beak-nosed...with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too'. His wife Lucrezia finds him 'so gentle; so serious; so clever'. Each character is thus revealed from various view-points and the reader is free to conclude about that characters from these varied thoughts. This appears a more dynamic mode of character presentation, and gives the reader the satisfation of being involved with that individual and not a mere spectator.

Instead of narrating the story as was being until the beginning of 20th century, Woolf makes use of the stream of consciousness technique in the novel, to unfold her characters. The technique involves recording the thought processes as they arise in the mind of the various individuals, without any apparent connecting links. This technique is seen as being more close to the real individual than the traditional one, for the latter appears to form a character from outside, only superficially, while the former delineates a living, 'thinking' individual, apparently evolving as the novel progresses. In MrsDalloway, there is seemingly no coherence in the thoughts of a character, flipping from one thing to the next without any linkages, as in the beginning, 'For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning-fresh as if issued to children on a beach'. The speaking voice also changes from person to person, ''That's an E,' said MrsBletchley-or a dancer-'
'It's toffee,' murmured MrBowley' However the shifts are so subtle that no apparent discontinuity is felt.

In Mrs Dalloway, the treatment of characters and incidents is essentially psychological in nature. Though the basic aim of all literature is to arrive at an understanding of an individual, traditionally, not much psychological study was being done. With the advancement of psychology as an independent field, and development of various theories, the writers were also influenced by those theories. More and more authors like Virginia Woolf started using those techniques in their works. In this novel too, each character is seen as a result of various experiences that he or she went through. Clarissa's rejection of Peter's proposal of marriage has influenced all his later thoughts and actions. The effect of war experiences on a sensitive mind are explored through the character of Septimus. The details concerning the tortured feelings of Septimus, the reasons behind his present mental state, his delusions and his reactions to everyday incidents, as well as his mistrust and abhorrence of the doctors, Clarissa's thoughts and mental reactions, Peter's life as seen though his thoughts and those of others, are vividly presented, and explained with subtle explanations about causes and counter-causes.

It can be emphatically concluded from the above discussion that Virginia Woolf succeeds in creating a modern novel, having most of the characteristics of modernism.

Comments on J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace

Whites in post apartheid South Africa

J.M. Coetzee, born and educated in South Africa, comments upon the changing scenario in the country of his birth. The life after the collapse of the appalling apartheid is strikingly portrayed in his work. It explores the basic human nature, which is not distinguished by any colour. ‘Disgrace’ makes for an impelling though disturbing read. The narrative leaves one dumfounded because of the depiction of cruelty. It is a series of such situations, unrelieved by any comic incidents.

‘Disgrace’ is a dark narrative of the travails of a white girl living all by herself on a farm. David Lurie is the professor of communications. His dalliance with one of his black students, Melanie, gets him discharged from his job. He leaves Cape Town to take up temporary residence with his daughter in the country to escape the hostile atmosphere of the city. However the country turns out not to be the place of refuge he thought it would be. His and his daughter’s life is disrupted by a brutal attack. They are robbed and his daughter is raped. He is disfigured in the savage attack. More disfiguring are the mental scars. He accepts the attack, what he cannot understand is why his daughter acquiesces to the situation, doesn’t say anything about it even to the police. This central incident sets in motion the process of mental subjugation, both Lucy and David’s. Lucy now shuns all human company, neglecting her dogs as well as her farm. She is more hurt by the “personal hatred” that her attackers had for her though they didn’t know her at all before the incident. David, who was so unbending before had refused to submit to the popular sentiment when asked to apologize publicly at Cape Town, now has to accept the incident. He feels old and helpless. He feels guilty that he couldn’t help his daughter. David who used to dislike the job of caring for animals as Lucy’s friend Bev Shaw does, starts helping her out at her clinic. By the end of the novel he learns to give up all that he held important or meaningful in his life, his womanizing, his quest to write the opera, his daughter, his personal dignity, and even the dogs he cares for.

The changing political conditions and their effect on the whites as well as blacks is under scrutiny in Coetzee’s Disgrace. The protagonist, David, who had been a privileged white professor, is disconcerted by the changes in the post-apartheid society. He cannot understand the reality of South Africa, as does his daughter. There has been a reversal of roles, whites are no longer capable of protecting themselves or their own. Blacks are their own masters as well as in a position to patronize the whites. With the dismantling of apartheid the society is in turmoil. There is anarchy all around. David feels out of place in his current job, teaching is merely a formality, an obligation to his students and their parents. There is no perceptible need for the study of ‘classical and modern languages’ so he has to teach the more important ‘communications’. He is a “hangover from the past, the sooner cleared away the better”, his misalliance with his ‘black’ student is seized upon to do just this. He cannot expect any mercy or sympathy ‘in this age and age’. At his daughter’s farm, he is asked to help Petrus, her “assistant…co-proprietor” unthinkable before. He comments on “historical piquancy” and even jests about the pay he will receive. In the middle of the attack on him and his daughter, the fate of almost all the whites living in the country, he mulls over his helplessness, and over the savagery of the “darkest Africa”. He is a non-entity, an impotent white who can only watch and suffer, an “Aunt Sally” whose knowledge of languages cannot save him or his child from “the savages”. The missionary “enterprise of upliftment” has failed miserably. The policy of forcing into submission has also backfired. David understands that this is revenge and that no one is safe from it. The attack on him and his daughter leave David shocked, humiliated and disgraced. He has to accept it as happening “every day, every hour, every minute…in every quarter of the country”, “another incident in the great campaign of redistribution”. He understands that things are no longer the same. “It is a new world they live in”. He laments the passing of old times when he helplessly tries to question Petrus if he had foreknowledge of the attack, and again when he wants the latter to explain the presence of one of the assailants at his party. He suspects Petrus of conniving with the attackers but unlike old days he cannot have it out in the open or lose his temper. He cannot even ask him to explain his relation to one of the attackers because ground realities have changed. He cannot confront him or get angry with him or let loose dogs on him, as had been the case before the regime change. The latter is “a neighbour who at present happens to sell his labour”. He feels more and more out of place in this South Africa. Even English, the language of the whites, is not an apt medium. It has ‘tired’, ‘thickened’ and ‘stiffened’ ‘like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud’. The South Africa he knew is “all gone, gone with the wind”.

David undergoes a profound change as the story progresses from the beginning to the end. From being stubborn and obstinate character as is reflected in his unapologetic and recalcitrant stand when asked to apologize and undergo counseling by the committee probing sexual harassment charges against him, he becomes an ‘old man’, readily giving up everything that he loves- desire to write an opera on Byron’s last days in Italy, his self esteem, even the dogs he cares for. He used to be sure of himself and his decisions, but now he has become bewildered at the fast paced changes taking place in the country, and he is not able to cope with those changes. Hence his settling in the country close to his daughter and helping at the clinic.

Though David knows the reality of present day South Africa, it is his daughter Lucy, the lone female white farmer, who truly understands and accepts this reality. She knows she is not safe on the farm and that dogs can provide “deterrence” only, but then who is safe even with weapons? She loves the land and stays on for its sake. Even after the savage attack, she decides to return to her farm because it is her land, and South Africa her country. David on the other hand is not ready to accept the changed conditions. He thinks of escape, suggests this course to Lucy, but she refuses to hide or run. She cannot be hounded out of her farm and her country. Her neighbours are also of the same opinion. Ettinger and Shaws are not willing to give up their claims to the land just because the times are dangerous. Staying on, as Lucy does, is their way of showing defiance in the face of increasing hostilities. Accepting Petrus as her neighbour on equal footing, inspite of his being black, as well as taking part in his rejoicings is her way of showing that she carries over no excess baggage from the past. She comments upon it matter of factly, “It is a big day for him. We should at least put in an appearance, take them a present”. She reminds David again and again that South Africa has changed, his is no longer a privileged life at the expense of the blacks.

Whites owe a debt to the blacks with their long history of subjugation. Post apartheid they are being made to pay for all the crimes committed, though this method of equalization is despicable in the extreme. Lucy terms her rapists as “debt collectors, tax collectors”. She would be allowed to live on only after paying her dues. The essential similarity of human nature emerges in the turn events take in the novel. Though there has been a profound change in the power structure of the country, post-apartheid society is no different. Power corrupts. Instead of learning to the contrary from their repression, blacks themselves are committing those crimes that oppressed them during apartheid. They are asserting their authority in much the same way as the whites did previously. David, or any other white for that matter, helpless to do anything about the situation, condones the violence as a necessary evil, “just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant”. Vengeance for the past wrongs, thrill and excitement at their victims’ fear and discomfiture are some of the motives behind the spate of rapine and pillaging. The blacks, subjected for so long, relegated to being servants, ‘dog man’ or ‘boy’ for long are now ready to take their share in the things. They don’t shy away from grabbing, robbery, or simple blackmail to get what they believe to be theirs. Though the likes of Petrus have worked hard and suffered, and have earned their right, not everyone seems willing to work hard. Petrus again and again points to the danger of a woman managing a farm alone, and assures her safety if she marries him. Lucy understands this as a ploy to get her farm by him. Nevertheless she accepts the proposal because she loves the land too much to just leave it. For unlike what David thinks she knows that escape is not a possibility. Leaving now will mean accepting defeat and being a refugee in a foreign land.

Though in Lucy’s case it is more of a healing journey through turmoil and pain, to acceptance and strength, the change in her character is no less. Though stunned after the ghastly attack, she emerges stronger from her ordeal. Her decisions to live on on the farm, and alone, and to give birth to her child are her way of showing defiance. She even agrees to the offer of marriage from Petrus, knowing the blackmail he intends, but on her own terms. She fiercely guards her independence, brooks no interference even from her well meaning though helpless father.

Petrus, the ‘dog-man’, portrays the changing face of South Africa. “Once he was a boy, now he is no longer.”(Ch-18, page 152) He is “a man of patience, energy, resilience…A plotter and a schemer and no doubt a liar too”(Ch-14, page 117). He has known hard work, known the life of indignity in the white regime, now, in this changed scenario, he has become a landowner, who doesn’t refrain from blackmail to get his hands on the remaining acres of Lucy’s farm. Though not explicitly stated in the text, he appears to be a silent accomplice in the attack on Lucy and her father, as if to convince her that farms should be managed not by women but by hardy men, and that women need protection of strong men to survive. His offer to marry Lucy to bring her under his protection is his way of conveying in rather clear terms that otherwise she is “fair game”. Lucy understands this reversal of roles and doesn’t report the rape to the police because it is “a purely private matter…in this place, at this time…It is my business…This place being South Africa.”

The change in Petrus is more of status; from a helping hand he becomes a landowner. He is self-confident, upwardly mobile, hard working, shrewd and opportune. He perfectly understands the conditions prevailing, and takes timely steps to make maximum gains. His offer to marry Lucy is a ruse to get her land in the garb of providing protection to her.

Coetzee’s Disgrace is a study of the changing fortunes of white as well as black South Africans. Through the depiction of a series of disturbing incidents, and their effects on the protagonist David, his daughter Lucy and her helper Petrus, the author has laid bare the turbulent reality of present day South Africa, as well as the effect of these changes on the whites who had hitherto led an exclusive and protected life, and blacks who had always been persecuted. Now with the change of political dispensation, fortunes of both have changed. David, confused and dazed belongs to the past and has no place in the South Africa of today. Lucy, brave, dauntless and self-reliant is shown to be the kind of person who will survive the turbulence that South Africa is going through. Petrus is the future of South Africa, black, zealous, enterprising, strong, competent and aware.